Our Pittsburgh Strip Dates

Like I mentioned last week, I’ve officially moved to Pittsburgh, jumping in with both feet ready to take on this town.

To get more acquainted, I thought I’d bring you along to one of our favorite weekend activities.  Our Strip Dates…

No, we’re not going to Cheerleaders’ Gentleman’s Club!  But it’s not too far from there. 

The Strip District in Pittsburgh is an area – or a strip of flat land along the Allegheny River where the railroad comes into town and where back in the day you would get all your freshest produce from.

Today it’s a long street with all kinds of vendors, restaurants with any ethnic food you can think of, and of course plenty of Black and Yellow gear.  But our first stop is always to DeLuca’s Restaurant.

DeLuca’s is a local diner type of place that’s been in a few movies over the years, including most recently Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise.  They have basically anything you can think up for a diner to serve, and their breakfast is THE BEST.  We’ve deviated a few times, but my favorite is the Steel City Special which basically gives you a little of all the best parts of breakfast.  PRO TIP – get cheese in your scrambled eggs.  It’s life changing.

We usually prefer to sit along the bar up front to watch the insanity unfold.  Somehow their team of cooks and servers turns out plate after plate in some of the tightest quarters I’ve ever seen – and it’s all so good!  If you’re not fond of a wait for breakfast, then wait for the brunch time-frame for things to be a little slower.

After we’re done with breakfast, we usually need to walk it off and take our time strolling along the tables and vendors to take it all in.  As we make our way down the street headed towards downtown, we usually stop in at ITK or In The Kitchen to peruse their gadgets and gizmos and dream of a gourmet kitchen of our own.

Their wares range from the obvious gizmos to even some of the more clever, like this wine stopper camera tripod and very obvious and typographic cork holder.

I’m a sucker for ceramics and these creamers are too cute!

And they even have some local wares too…

After we’ve mentally created our registry again and again (Though you CAN create a real registry with them online…), we usually move on back towards where we parked and venture into Wholey’s Fish Market for some ogling of fish of all kinds…

Yup, that’s a shark greeting you as you walk in.  He’s not always waiting for you, but there are often some strange and unique fish of some kind when you first enter.  And a fresh, while you wait sushi counter too.  Everything is right there, right off the truck or train and ready for your dinner table.

…and in some cases, they’re swimming there, waiting for you to pick them out!  (They also have fresh lobster too!)

But Wholey’s doesn’t just stop at fish.  They have a full meat market too.

Here again you can find all kinds of wonky things you won’t usually find at your Giant or other local supermarket.  But of course they have your usual chicken breast and steaks too.  But who wants pictures of that? 😉

And to keep all of this food fresh and cold for you, they make 40,000 pounds of fresh ice per day.  PER DAY.

To give you some perspective on that, 40,000 pounds can get you a train locomotive.  Yup. (WikiWIN)

They even have some available at the exit of the market so you can wrap your fresh fillet and be sure it’s as fresh as can be by the time you get it home.

The reason we START with DeLuca’s is so that we’re not hungry when we get to Wholey’s, otherwise we’d come home with hundreds of dollars spent on tuna steak alone.  But there’s a great deal more to The Strip District than just these three favorites.  The Pennsylvania Macaroni Company is another, but we’ll save that for another day.

For now I’m still unpacking and trying to figure out how to get to adults and their things into one apartment.  Oh, and trying to acquire a dresser of my own.  Wahoo!

~ Beth